Akio Morita was born in Nagoya, Aichi, Japan. Morita's family was involved in sake, miso and soy sauce production in the Chita Peninsula, Aichi Prefecture
since 1665. He was the oldest of four siblings and his father Kyuzaemon
trained him as a child to take over the family business. Akio, however,
found his true calling in mathematics and physics, and in 1944 he
graduated from Osaka Imperial University with a degree in physics. He later joined the navy and served as a lieutenant during World War II. During his service, Morita met his future business partner Masaru Ibuka in the Navy's Wartime Research Committee.

On May 7, 1946, Morita and Ibuka founded Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha
(Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation, the forerunner of
Sony Corporation) with about 20 employees and initial capital of
¥190,000. Ibuka was 38 years old, Morita, 25. Morita's family invested
in Sony during the early period and was the largest shareholder.

In 1949, the company developed magnetic recording tape and in 1950,
sold the first tape recorder in Japan. In 1957, it produced a
pocket-sized radio (the first to be fully transistorized), and in 1958, Morita and Ibuka decided to rename their company Sony (sonus is Latin for sound, and Sonny-boys is Japanese slang for "whiz kids").[2] Morita was an advocate for all the products made by the Sony Corporation.
However, since the radio was slightly too big to fit in a shirt pocket,
Morita made his employees wear shirts with slightly larger pockets to
give the radio a "pocket sized" appearance. In 1960, it produced the
first transistor television in the world. In 1973, Sony received an Emmy Award for its Trinitron television-set technology. In 1975, it released the first Betamax home video recorder, a year before VHS came out. In 1979, the Walkman was introduced, making it the world's first portable music player. In 1984, Sony launched the Discman series which extended their Walkman brand to portable CD products.

On November 25, 1994, Morita stepped down as Sony chairman after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage while playing tennis. His successor, Norio Ohga, had joined the company after sending Morita a letter denouncing the poor quality of the company's tape recorders.

In 1966, Morita wrote a book called Gakureki Muyō Ron (学歴無用論,
Never Mind School Records), where he stresses that school records are
not important to success or one's business skills. In 1986, Morita wrote
an autobiography titled Made in Japan. He co-authored the 1991 essay The Japan That Can Say No with politician Shintaro Ishihara,
where they criticized American business practices and encouraged
Japanese to take a more independent role in business and foreign
affairs.